The coffee had been good, very good, and they
wanted more, so the very next morning they brought to Colonel Palmer
an old dried scalp lock, scalp of "White Chief's enemy," with the same
ceremony as they had brought the hand. Then they sat around his tent
and watched him, giving little grunts now and then until in
desperation he ordered coffee for them, after which they danced. The
men gave them bits of tobacco too. Well, they kept this performance up
three or four days, each day bringing something to Colonel Palmer to
make him think they had killed a Sioux. This became very tiresome;
besides, the soldiers were being robbed of coffee, so Colonel Palmer
shut himself in his tent and refused to see them one day, and an
orderly told them to go away and make no noise. They finally left the
post looking very mournful, the men said. I told Colonel Palmer that
he might better have gone out on the hills as I did; that it was ever
so much nicer than being shut up in a tent.
Bettie is learning to rear higher and higher, and I ride Pete now. The
last time I rode her she went up so straight that I slipped back in my
saddle, and some of the enlisted men ran out to my assistance. I let
her have her own way and came back to the tent, and jumping down,
declared to Faye that I would never ride her again. She is very cute
in her badness, and having once discovered that I didn't like a
rearing horse, she has proceeded to rear whenever she wanted her own
way. I have enjoyed riding her because she is so graceful and dainty,
but I have been told so many times that the horse was dangerous and
would throw me, that perhaps I have become a little nervous about her.
A detail of soldiers goes up in the mountains twice every day for
poles with which to make the roofs of the log quarters. They go along
a trail on the other side of the creek, and on this side is a narrow
deer path that runs around the rocky side of a small mountain. Ever
since I have been here I have wanted to go back of the mountain by
that path. So, when I happened to be out on Pete yesterday afternoon
at the time the men started, I at once decided to take advantage of
their protection and ride around the little mountain.
About half a mile up, there were quantities of bushes eight and ten
feet high down in the creek bed, and the narrow trail that Pete was on
was about on a level with the tops of the bushes. At my left the hill
was very steep and covered with stones. I was having a delightful
time, feeling perfectly safe with so many soldiers within call. But
suddenly things changed. Down in those bushes there was a loud
crashing and snapping, and then straight up into the air jumped a
splendid deer! His head and most of his neck were above the bushes,
and for just one instant he looked at us with big inquisitive eyes
before he went down again.
When the deer went up Pete went up, too, on the steep hill, and as I
was on his back I had to go with him. The horse was badly frightened,
snorted, and raised his tail high, and when I tried to get him down on
the trail, the higher up he went on the rolling stones. I could almost
touch the side of the mountain with my whip in places, it was so
steep. It was a most dangerous position to be in, and just what
elevation I might have been carried to eventually I do not know, had
not the deer stopped his crashing through the bushes and bounded up on
the opposite bank, directly in front of the first team of mules, and
then on he streaked it across a plateau and far up a mountain side,
his short white tail showing distinctly as he ran. With the deer, Pete
seemed to think that the Evil One had gone, too, and consented to
return to the trail and to cross the stream over to the wagons.
The corporal had stopped the wagons until he saw that I was safely
down, and I asked him why he had not killed the deer - we are always in
need of game - and he said that he had not seen him until he was in
front of the mules, and that it was impossible then, as the deer did
not wait for them to get the rifles out of their cases on the bottom
of the wagons. That evening at the whist table I told Colonel Palmer
about the deer and Pete, and saw at once that I had probably gotten
the poor corporal in trouble. Colonel Palmer was very angry that the
men should even think of going several miles from the post, in an
Indian country, with their rifles cased and strapped so they would
have been practically useless in case of an attack.
Faye says that the men were not thinking of Indians, but simply trying
to keep their rifles from being marred and scratched, for if they did
get so they would be "jumped" at the first inspection. Colonel Palmer
gave most positive orders for the soldiers to hold their rifles in
their hands on their way to and from the mountains, which perhaps is
for the best.
But I am afraid they will blame me for such orders having been issued.
FORT MAGINNIS, MONTANA TERRITORY,
October, 1880.
IT is not surprising that politicians got a military post established
here, so this wonderful country could be opened and settled, for the
country itself is not only beautiful, but it has an amount of game
every place that is almost beyond belief.
